I did not make any cultures. I could not be happier with the cultures that Marco has sourced and are available through sourdough.com. I had heard that it can be very tricky getting cultures through customs, and I was more concerned with sneaking through my Neapolitan basil, and cherry tomato seeds. These strains of basil and tomato are different than what we have here in the us. I can see that in future visits I might try for the cultures, as customs just flagged me through.